Thermolds are great for range use, the sides are thinner than other US mags but they fit and cycled just fine for me. I had more problems with some of the other domestic poly mags.

In general, if you are looking for poly then Bulgarian waffles are the best. None of the US-made polys have steel in the feed lips or lugs. US Palms have some reinforcement but not much and cost just as much as Bulgys. The plastic lugs will eventually wear down or snap off but if treated gently you can get some good mileage out of them.

Thermold mags work without a bullet guide installed if you file down the mag catch or the rear lug of the mag. It has been posted here over the years. I used them until I had installed my bullet guide. Still have a bag full of them. They are fine as far as range mags.

Thermold mags work without a bullet guide installed if you file down the mag catch or the rear lug of the mag. It has been posted here over the years. I used them until I had installed my bullet guide. Still have a bag full of them. They are fine as far as range mags.

Yes this is correct, and if I may brag a little, I'm the one that discovered this (at least on this forum). I noticed at a gun show that the Master Molder mags don't have the drop in the front that most AK mags do and instead have a straight front like the Saiga mags so I tested one out on an unconverted Saiga and posted about it. Yes, you can all go back and check I'm pretty sure I was the first one to post on this. Actually I first asked if anyone else had tried it and when nobody responded I went ahead and tried it myself.

Whatever the case, you're going to want a bullet guide in there in order to use other mags, and once you do a conversion it will be legal to insert the guide. If you're just using the MasterMolder mags remember that you'll have to reduce your parts count somehow to avoid being in violation since you'd be using a high capacity magazine, but of course the three mag parts will be taken care of. Of course this has gotten a little murky now that there are actual high cap Saiga mags too.

DO NOT BUY THERMOLD MAGAZINES FROM CDNN SPORTS. I bought 5 magazines. Just received them. The magazines have been cut and hacked to cut out the front lip in some kind of effort to make the magazine look like a standard AK magazine. The Thermold magazines CDNN sent me will not work in an Saiga without a bullet guide and probably would not work reliably in a Saiga or AK with a bullet guide. Somebody has FUBAR'd these magazines and they are worthless IMHO>

I talked to CDNN Sports and they say to simply return them for a refund. I certainly appreciate that from the vendor. They state that the magazines came from Thermold this way. So I guess now to buy a Thermold magazine you actually have to eyeball it and make sure it isn't one with the front lip cut out on it.

I talked to CDNN Sports and they say to simply return them for a refund. I certainly appreciate that from the vendor. They state that the magazines came from Thermold this way. So I guess now to buy a Thermold magazine you actually have to eyeball it and make sure it isn't one with the front lip cut out on it.

Huh. Thanks for the info. I wonder if all their new production is that way.

Huh. Thanks for the info. I wonder if all their new production is that way.

Same here. I wonder if they got in trouble for making mags that work in a Saiga and decided to cut the little drop in the front so they'd only work in regular AK's. I honestly doubt they even thought about this when they designed them, they probably just designed the mags to be functional and didn't notice that leaving that little bit of material at the top would let us use them like we have.

I just received four of the 47rd and one 30rd from them about a month or so ago and all of them are solid on the front lip. None are milled out like standard AK mags. They are made the same as the ones I purchased back in 2007.